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Well, this is the first blog post that I'm publishing after 2 months. I'm really sorry about the absence of updates and news as i was really busy with University academics and AIESEC work. This post is about the Astronomy camp that we conducted for the Asian International School (AIS) last 18th of March

I'm now gonna blog about an event that we had in our University almost 2 months back. I'm really sorry guys for dragging this such longer due to the busy schedule I've been undergoing last few months due to various reasons. Hope you don't mind me sharing in so late. Anyway here it is...

The most awaited total solar eclipse of the year 2010 is about to take place in less than next 20 hours from now. There have been a lot of groups/ individuals flocked at South Pacific islands and Chilean territories right now waiting for the eclipse to take place.

As the title of this post hints, there were lot of countries involved in this worldwide celebration during 2009, which was the 400th anniversary of both the discovery of telescope for astronomical observation by Galileo Galilei and the publication of “Astronomia Nova” by Johannes Kepler. These were the reasons which were prominent in specifying 2009 as the IYA.

I have already made a post about Fiami, and his great gift that I received during the Christmas season. I got many great feedback on that and even my friends wanted to read it, as none of them had the comic book with them, So I thought of doing a youtube video featuring Fiami

The Blog Has Moved !

Saturday, January 30, 2010

As the title of this post hints, there were lot of countries involved in this worldwide celebration during 2009, which was the 400th anniversary of both the discovery of telescope for astronomical observation by Galileo Galilei and the publication of “Astronomia Nova” by Johannes Kepler. These were the reasons which were prominent in specifying 2009 as the IYA.

Therefore many countries took part in different projects and they didn’t stop from that, and went on further by issuing commemorative material to cherish the IYA2009. There were books, coins. stamps, medallions and many more. I’ve focused here on the coins and numismatic issues that have been issued in commemoration of IYA2009

Austrian Mint in Vienna issued this coin, which has a face value of 25 Euros. This coins looks very elegant and has been made with Silver and Niobium, each of which complete the coin with outer silvery edge and inner ring in golden yellow. More information can be found here

In fact there is a set of IYA2009 Coins issued by the Royal Australian Mint together with the Canberra Astronomical Society. These were released in 2008, much earlier to the IYA2009, itself. More info is available here

This set of IYA2009 coins has 3 different coins and has been issued by ANGKASA (The Malaysian National Space Agency) in co-operation with Central Bank of Malaysia with the objective of making the public more aware of IYA2009 and it’s significance. More information are here

This Coins was issued by Canadian Mint for International Year of Astronomy IYA2009 and it has a face value of $ 30, which is much valuable. I believe many numismatists would adore to have this, which is made up of Silver (90% +) and Copper. More information available here.

This IYA2009 coin features the usual German eagle and a portrait of Johannes Kepler, respectively on obverse and reverse sides. There has been a mintage of 200,000 pieces for this silver proof coin face-valued at 10 Euros. More information are available here.

Issued by the world’s smallest state, Vatican this coin generally deals with the perception of science and faith. This has a face value of 2 Euros and depicts the European map on the obverse side and a portrait of famous talented Italian compatriot of Galileo, Michelangelo on the reverse side together with some astronomical equipment, used during 17th century which was the Galilean era. More information can be found here.

It’s great to see that more than 1 coin have been issued from Republic of San Marino in celebration of this global endeavor. They look very elegant and I’m pretty sure that astro-numismatists are gonna love these. They are simply awesome. Feel free to brows more information here.

This IYA2009 coin was issued by Czech National Bank in last October. Initially there were 1000 coins, minted with Silver (900 pieces) and Copper (100 pieces). This is a CZK 200 coin, which tributes Johannes Kepler, much similar in general to other IYA2009 coins issued by corresponding European countries. Read more about IYA2009 Czech coins here.

This Ukrainian IYA2009 coin has been issued in last October with a mintage of 45,000 pieces. This coin has a face value of 5 hryvnias (Ukrainian currency), which is less than a $1 I assume. The obverse of this coin features Urania, a goddess coming from Greek mythology and some cosmic simulation on the background, whereas the reverse depicts Yurii Drohobych who was an eminent Ukrainian astronomer, lived during the 15th century. More information could be read here.

This set of coins contains issued by Romania in celebration of International Year of Astronomy 2009 comes with elegant numismatic markup, together with a medallion issued for the same cause. This medallion is made up of silver and looks gorgeous as below.

The obverse side of this medal presents the official logo of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and the inscription "ANUL INTERNATIONAL AL ASTRONOMIEI ROMANIA 2009" which is translated to "International Year of Astronomy 2009 ROMANIA.

This is a medallion, issued for the IYA2009 adding a little bit variety to the numismatic collections. This medal looks gorgeous in its shiny lacquer surface. The role played by the Hungarian Numismatic Society was instrumental when it comes to the issuance of this elegant medallion. The obverse, which is to your left, resemble the Hungarian version of IYA209 official logo. On the other hand you can see the figure of Jeno Gothard who was famous Hungarian astronomer, whose spectrum-related discoveries are significant in the history of astronomy. More information could be found here.

Well, that’s it. I think you had a whole lot of reading. Though I didn’t intend to extend this post to such a degree, I had to do it for the purpose of completeness, I believe there are some other countries that have had IYA2009 related numismatic issues. If you happen to know of such a country, please feel free to share it with comments, so that I can include that as well in this blog post.

Especially for astro-numismatists, I leave this IYA2009-Coin blog link to explore more news about astronomy and numismatic issues. Go ahead and collect them all. I’m sure Ebay will help you a lot in ordering these numismatic stuff. Even I, myself ordered the Ukrainian IYA2009 coin for $11.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

It's not more than 2 days, since I created this new blog. It's a .blogspot as well. The aim of this attempt was to feature all the coins issued for IYA2009 by different countries, in celebration of International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009, which was the last year).

I searched forIYA2009 coins & scanned many sites/ blogs in search of IYA2009 coins/ numismatic issues dedicating a whole lot of time during last 2 days. Then I created the blog and now it has 8 posts, 7 of which feature IYA2009 coins issued by Australia, Austria, Canada, Malaysia, Italy, Germany, & San Marino.

Here is a screen shot of the blog, whose template I developed so that it features the photos of coins more elegantly, and I'm hoping to improve it more.

Martian Opposition 2010. The idea is to make a call to come to watch and show the planet, the Moon, to recognize any constellation. With family, friends and enjoy the sky (if weather permitting us ...)
This will be on 27, 28, 29 and 30 between 21 and about 23:30hs local, from the ramparts of Natural Sciences Municipal Museum of Mar del Plata city.
On 26, we give a brief talk on this subject audiovisual.
Of course, everything is free.

Well, don't expect something like that, Hello, Red Planet is the Martian Observation Campaign that's set up by the Astronomers Without Borders and Sidewalk Astronomers.There would be a global partnership for this project, with 13 countries have now confirmed their participation. Hello, Red Planet will allow many people around the world to observe the Mars from January 25th, through the 30th to witness the amazing celestial phenomenon, known as Mars at opposition.

This can also be interpreted as a Martian encounter, where you'll get a bigger Mars much close to the Earth, Probably you might even have noticed some difference with the star-like object that you see in east some time after the sun set. In fact it's the Mars that you see and you can use binoculars or the telescope to better observe the Mars.

Go ahead and organize campaigns to get as many people as possible to observe this great natural phenomenon, which takes place once in nearly 2 years. Therefore don't miss it !! Show it to everybody in your area/ neighborhood. Get on to streets, parks and catch up this Martian encounter.

If you have a local astronomy club, you can get together and organized something for this, it may be a star party or an observation camp. Get as any people as possible and let them watch it. You can also send in your stories, saying how the event went on, along with few of photos, that were taken, and here is the form that you'd need.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

As many of you are aware, we went on an expedition to bring out a live webcast of the annular solar eclipse that took place on last 15th January 2010. The other priority of this eclipse expedition was to conduct an outreach campaign enabling as many peoples as possible to watch the eclipse with safe methods. (If you have been with my other blog which is dedicated to eclipse 2010, you must have known the whole story, for I brought up an updated bulletin about our eclipse expedition right from the beginning through the end)

Well, I will try to tell you the story without exhausting you guys, because it's bit long, If you really wanna know the eclipse expedition in detail, please check out the January Archive of Eclipse Blog.

Our Expedition crew composed of 10 members, who represent different astronomical associations of Sri Lanka.
In fact we have been doing astronomical programs, outreach projects, podcasts for a quite a period of time. In fact many of us were contributes of prominent astronomy portal of Sri Lanka, SkyLk.com Following people were the members of our eclipse expedition crew,

We drove to Jaffna, located at Northern Sri lanka to arrive at the central line of the annular eclipse. I 'd like to recall the sponsorship we got from Express Newspapers and our friend Karthik Vijay in this regard, They supported us with every possible means !!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Here concludes the IYA2009, I was lucky enough to catch up the last part of the show as the current came back, and I also lost the recovery of previous session of recording, as the current suddenly went down.. the recovery with camtasia failed..

Catherine at the last moments of IYA2009 Closing Ceremony !!

OK, here is Robert Williams new President of IAU, bidding farewell to IYA2009, with his speech !! Well of course, Franco Pacini should be thanked for if it had not been his idea, there wouldn't have been an IYA !! I remember how Catherine Cesarsky the former president of International Astronomical Union, thanked him even yesterday during the 1st day's session at the IYA2009 Closing ceremony. Thank you Franco so much !!

I have some more images to be posted featuring Ron Ekers, Ron and Lee may be having coffee and I'm stipp uploading th images.. Hold on.. well the upload done, here go the images.................and apparently the Coffee session is over, a laughter from the audience,

Oh Damn !!
The current went down, gius it's now that the current came in !!

What an attack to my teleblog !!

I don't know what caused this, and now I'n hearing the name of H G Wells in the and Shape of Things to Come, we I've read this book, lol >> Atomic Bomb, coining a new word !!

and that's it !!

I missed almost 45 minutes, due to this unavoidable current loss, and now I'm recovering the last recorded video..\\

I wish I had a laptop, and id I did, I could have continuously blogged !!

What a closing ceremony it is !! Getting more exciting !! New innovative ideas/ suggestions to carry forward the basic theme of IYA2009, yes it should go beyond IYA2009, and I hopw it will continue to do so, in the times to come !!

I was just having a break after making the first post of my so-called tele-blogging (Is it a legal word, let me know, I don't think I coined a word, do I ?) I just googled "teleblogging" lolz, it says there are 34,200 results,

And Yes, the 4 Noble Prizes in astronomy !!

Any way now back to tele-blogging, I was listening to the comprehensive presentation given by Ron Ekers on "Large Radio Astronomy Projects”. Ron was from Australian and he went on to say so much important stuff, while I was busy taking screen shots, It was really astounding and I was kinda enchanted to the flow he maintained during his presentation, and there were also comments, afterwards made by the audience, especially Catherine, the former president,

And Let's go through some shots I captured..

I agree with Lee, the pictures say 1000 words...

And the speech is over now, I'll post some more images/ photos with regard to this in the next post !!!

It's the Coffee break now, Lee, it's the time you stood up from the bench !!!

Yes, Lee Pullen, You and cosmic diary have inspired me !! I am grateful that I can tele-blog from Sri Lanka about the same event as you do, with the inspiration from you !!

Well now the fascinating talk of astronomy in wavelengths is over, I wish it went some time, but we should be aware that it's time permitting as well, Thank you Isabelle Grenier for such an educating presentation, I really liked the slides she used,

Now comes another person to the podium, and I can see that the name of the person, engraved in the beautiful holder, is replaced. As I recall it was Sabrina, who was doing this stuff and I remember how she was helping Catherine previous day !! Today the face is not much clear !! But let's keep watching !!

Now focus on the speaker !!

He is Roberto Gilmozzi, surely Italian, as the accent sounds !! He is speaking about Telescopes, of course the eyes on the skies, the sophisticated and cutting-edge eyes !! He will continue to speak on Large Ground-based Optical Telescopes, as per the agenda, and now I've attache herewith some images that I took as screen captures.

Keep tuned in,

And I should thank to Lee again for mentioning me in his LiveBlog posts. and for the facebook as well, for letting me communicate with Lee at the same time, he's doing an outstanding job out there in the squeezed bench !!

The last day of the IYA2009 Closing Ceremony, is today , 10th of January 2010, or in numerical way, 10/01/2010 , well I see a certain significance in this number, What about you? zeros, ones and just a two,

Well, now let's go to the story !!

In the morning following events took place, If you have already gone through the agenda, you will have an insight of those, In the meantime I recorded the event and as it seems now, there has been something gone with my recorder, however I was successful yesterday and I uploaded 3 videos to youtube featuring IYA2009 Closing Ceremony, I'm sure there are many to come !!

Now it's the noon in Italy, (evening in Sri Lanka) there's about a time gap of 4 hours and 30 minutes roughly. IYA2009 Closing ceremony is now in a break and everybody is having lunch. They have stopped the streaming and there's a good music being played instead, so I started blogging listening to that background music.

However now I began to see the streaming, still the music is on and I see a woman performing something near the podium.
And this lasted for a while, there was some sideshow, in the project !

Now I started recording again !!

Well the lunch seems to be over, it should be 2.00 pm in Italy now !! The woman began to speak,

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, how I understand, she should be Isabelle Grenier, She is talking about "Astronomy at all the wavelengths"..
I should say that the show is really brought out interestingly with the picture-rich slide show,

I believe Lee's blogging in the other end from the very auditorium from Padua, Italy !!

Now it's time I looked up Lee's blog, to see any update afterward the lunch,
He should have a good Italian lunch, by the way, let's see !!

I just uploaded the video that I recorded, featuring the address of Vincenzo Giorgio, of Thales Alenia Space, Principal Sponsor !!

This is what he said in his speech (in video). He spoke on "Unlocking the secrets of the Universe". And I think cocktail party is progressing there in Padua now. I was on a chat with Lee of Cosmicdiary. He was there blogging in his LiveBlog for CosmicDiary and the live stream is also finished now. I wonder if they are gonna start the streaming again for the Orchestra to happen tonight !!

It's the IYA2009 closing ceremony which is the major focus online, among astronomy folks, No exception here as well in Sri Lanka, Just catch up the latest happenings of IYA2009 - Closing ceremony if you didn't make it to Padua already.

You can watch the Closing ceremony Live here with the internet broadcast at the beyond2009 site.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

I have already made a post about Fiami, and his great gift that I received during the Christmas season. I got many great feedback on that and even my friends wanted to read it, as none of them had the comic book with them, So I thought of doing a youtube video featuring Fiami,

I think you guys have visited his site @ fiami.ch and in addition you can find different translations of this book as well, Fiami has also authored a special comic book which is titled The Lives of Einstein, the way Fiami sees and make others understand simple fact very easily , is really great

Here it is!! Go ahead and watch it !! Please don't forget to rate and comment as well.

You can also see his special autographed, dedicated to me. The most significant thing was that he's drawn a picture of his comic Galileo in the blank page just before the inner back cover, The comic Galileo is uttering "Hello Desh, My Dear Colleague'In fact I couldn't believe that in the beginning as it was a so inspiring autograph !!

Here are the photos that I took to highlight this great gift !!Thank you so much Fiami !!My thank also should go to Sabrina Masiero of Italy for letting me the chance to get in touch with this great Swiss author !! I can also think this is a present for me for IYA2009 or the new year as well, You guys just tell what you think, then !!

I'm Prasanna Deshapriya, currently following my Master degree in Space Applications at USTH in Vietnam. I've graduated from University of Colombo with my Bachelor degree in Physical Science. I'm also an amateur astronomer, gazing at the skies to better discover the universe. Furthermore I voluntarily work as the NPoC of SGAC for Sri Lanka and engage myself in popularization of astronomy & space science during my free time.